In Costa Rica a college education is free and in fact they have a school teacher Emma Gamboa printed on their currency. In the United States people graduate from college with mountains of debt to pay off unless they were fortunate enough to have fairly wealthy parents.

The issue with our education though is not whether or not the government pays for it but whether or not people want to learn. I see too many people in America that have no real passion or intellectual curiosity about other people and are only in college because they think it will fetch them a six figure salary.

When I worked in the rural area of Rio Celeste, Costa Rica most of the people were not highly educated but were always intellectually curious. They didn't know historical figures like Gandhi or Dr. King but I could educate them and they would listen. Even in schools in America kids have little desire to expand their minds not until I got to massage school where people were connected and happy.

As for education in most countries vs. in the United States, it seems to be better among other industrialized nations for several reasons. For one thing students in most other countries wear UNIFORMS to school verses in the U.S. ( unless a child attends a private school). Secondly, when it comes to funding, the government pays for it on a national level even up to the university stage. Verses in the U.S. where public education is paid for through local property taxes in which based on the real estate values determines the quality of schooling a child will receive. For example if a child lives in a middle to upper-class neighborhood, they will have a higher quality education with good teachers, up-to-date facilities, computers, etc. and even the option of going to a private school. Thus, these children will also likely go onto the nation's top universities. However, if the child lives in a poor area such as the ghetto inner-city or rural town the funding is often far less as is the quality of education. This subject is highlighted in a book written by Johnathan Kozol entitled "Savage Inequalities".

But even if all the public education were funded equally I have come to believe it wouldn't solve the problem of the mass ignorance among most Americans. This is because American public education is BY DESIGN (through the elites such as the Rockefeller's) BEING "DUMBED DOWN" for both the purpose of SOCIALIZATION AND INDOCTRINATION. Not to create critical and creative thinkers, factual learning, or for expanding your intellect. Just enough to do a job, work in a group, or gain a skill. For the result of producing future EMPLOYEES AND SOLDIERS as Robert T. Kiyosaki the author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad" series mentions in one of his books "Rich Dad Smart Kid". Then finally I would like to say that American culture itself does not foster much intellectual thinking or curiosity of other countries/cultures/world events/history (except among those considered "nerds", "bookworms", or "geeks"). But instead the focus is too much on parties, drugs/alcohol, sports, popularity/social cliques, celebrities, sex, video games, violence, gangs, consumerism, and materialism. Please for anyone reading this thread check out these links:

The curriculum in American education is all about drinking, drugs and getting laid with this as a result:

“Forty-two percent of American adults cannot locate Japan on a world map, and according to Garrison Keillor (National Public Radio, 22 March 1997), another survey revealed that nearly 15 percent couldn’t locate the United States (!). Keillor remarked that this was like not being able to “grab your rear end with both hands,” and he suggested that we stop being so assiduous, on the eve of elections, about trying to get out the vote.• A survey taken in October 1996 revealed that one in ten voters did not know who the Republican or Democratic nominees for president were. This is particularly sobering when one remembers that one of the questions traditionally asked in psychiatric wards as part of the test for sanity is “Who is the president of the United States?”• Very few Americans understand the degree to which corporations have taken over their lives. But according to a poll taken by Time magazine, nearly 70 percent of them believe in the existence of angels; and another study turned up the fact that 50 percent believe in the presence of UFOs and space aliens on earth, while a Gallup poll (reported on CNN, 19 August 1997) revealed that 84 percent of American college seniors couldn’t say who was president at the start of the Korean War (Harry Truman). Fifty-eight percent of American high school seniors cannot understand a newspaper editorial in any newspaper, and a U.S. Department of Education survey of 22,000 students in 1995 revealed that 50 percent were unaware of the Cold War, and that 60 percent had no idea of how the United States came into existence.• At one point in 1996, Jay Leno invited a number of high school students to be on his television program and asked them to complete famous quotations from major American documents, such as the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence. Their response in each case was to stare at him blankly. As a kind of follow-up, on his show of 3 June 1999, Leno screened a video of interviews he had conducted a few days before at a university graduation ceremony. He did not identify the institution in question; he told his TV audience only that the students he had interviewed included graduate students as well as undergraduates. The group included men, women, and people of color. Leno posed eight questions, as follows:

1. Who designed the first American flag?Answers included Susan B. Anthony (born in 1820) and “Betsy Ford.”2. What were the Thirteen Colonies free from, after the American Revolution?One student said, “The East Coast.”3. What was the Gettysburg Address?One student replied, “An address to Getty”; another said, “I don’t know the exact address.”4. Who invented the lightbulb?Answers included Thomas Jefferson.5. What is three squared?One student said, “Twenty-seven”; another said, “Six.”6. What is the boiling point of water?Answers included 115º F.7. How long does it take the earth to rotate once on its axis?The two answers Leno received here were “Light-years” (which is a measure of distance, not time) and “Twenty-four axises [sic].”8. How many moons does the earth have?The student questioned said she had taken astronomy “a few years back and had gotten an A in the course but that she couldn’t remember the correct answer.

It is important to note that not a single student interviewed had the correct answer to any of these questions. Leno’s comment on this pathetic debacle says it all: “And the Chinese are stealing secrets from us?”• A 1998 survey by the National Constitution Center revealed that only 41 percent of American teenagers can name the three branches of government, but 59 percent can name the Three Stooges. Only 2 percent can name the chief justice of the Supreme Court; 26 percent were unable to identify the vice president. In the early 1990s, the National Assessment of Education Progress reported that 50 percent of seventeen year olds could not express 9/100 as a percentage, and nearly 50 percent couldn’t place the Civil War in the correct half cen“century—data that the San Antonio Express News characterized as evidence of the “steady lobotomizing” of American culture. In another study of seventeen year olds, only 4 percent could read a bus schedule, and only 12 percent could arrange six common fractions in order of size.• Ignorance of the most elementary scientific facts on the part of American adults is nothing less than breathtaking. In a survey conducted for the National Science Foundation in October 1995, 56 percent of those polled said that electrons were larger than atoms; 63 percent stated that the earliest human beings lived at the same time as the dinosaurs (a chronological error of more than 60 million years); 53 percent said that the earth revolves around the sun in either a day or a month (that is, only 47 percent understood that the correct answer is one year); and 91 percent were unable to state what a molecule was. A random telephone survey of more than two thousand adults, conducted by Northern Illinois University, revealed that 21 percent believed that the sun revolved around the earth, with an additional 7 percent saying that they did not know which revolved around which.”

You can go and look how Americans were educated 100 years ago to get an idea how America invented the modern world. As Tesla stated America was the place to be for creative minds but he ran into the elite wall being bricked up world wide because he obviously was to creative of a thinker and a nice man to boot.

People need to understand America is the British colony of America, America went bankrupt over 80 year ago and the US Corp which is a crown colony has been erected to bring forth the socialist collective of idiots. It is good to see some of the rest of the world is curious, curious and not corrupted enough by the influence of the credit system to stop the world wide police dictatorship being erected around us is very ?able. America seems to be brain dead and in this regard the people who hijacked it and took it over have made their point loud and clear about the mass of humanity.

Last edited by Moretorque on August 16th, 2015, 7:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

HappyinEurope wrote: But according to a poll taken by Time magazine, nearly 70 percent of them believe in the existence of angels; and another study turned up the fact that 50 percent believe in the presence of UFOs and space aliens on earth,.”

Be careful buddy, Mr. Wu is a big believer in Space Monsters and the existence of Supernatural beings here on earth.

HappyinEurope wrote:The curriculum in American education is all about drinking, drugs and getting laid with this as a result:

“Forty-two percent of American adults cannot locate Japan on a world map, and according to Garrison Keillor (National Public Radio, 22 March 1997), another survey revealed that nearly 15 percent couldn’t locate the United States (!). Keillor remarked that this was like not being able to “grab your rear end with both hands,” and he suggested that we stop being so assiduous, on the eve of elections, about trying to get out the vote.• A survey taken in October 1996 revealed that one in ten voters did not know who the Republican or Democratic nominees for president were. This is particularly sobering when one remembers that one of the questions traditionally asked in psychiatric wards as part of the test for sanity is “Who is the president of the United States?”• Very few Americans understand the degree to which corporations have taken over their lives. But according to a poll taken by Time magazine, nearly 70 percent of them believe in the existence of angels; and another study turned up the fact that 50 percent believe in the presence of UFOs and space aliens on earth, while a Gallup poll (reported on CNN, 19 August 1997) revealed that 84 percent of American college seniors couldn’t say who was president at the start of the Korean War (Harry Truman). Fifty-eight percent of American high school seniors cannot understand a newspaper editorial in any newspaper, and a U.S. Department of Education survey of 22,000 students in 1995 revealed that 50 percent were unaware of the Cold War, and that 60 percent had no idea of how the United States came into existence.• At one point in 1996, Jay Leno invited a number of high school students to be on his television program and asked them to complete famous quotations from major American documents, such as the Gettysburg Address and the Declaration of Independence. Their response in each case was to stare at him blankly. As a kind of follow-up, on his show of 3 June 1999, Leno screened a video of interviews he had conducted a few days before at a university graduation ceremony. He did not identify the institution in question; he told his TV audience only that the students he had interviewed included graduate students as well as undergraduates. The group included men, women, and people of color. Leno posed eight questions, as follows:

1. Who designed the first American flag?Answers included Susan B. Anthony (born in 1820) and “Betsy Ford.”2. What were the Thirteen Colonies free from, after the American Revolution?One student said, “The East Coast.”3. What was the Gettysburg Address?One student replied, “An address to Getty”; another said, “I don’t know the exact address.”4. Who invented the lightbulb?Answers included Thomas Jefferson.5. What is three squared?One student said, “Twenty-seven”; another said, “Six.”6. What is the boiling point of water?Answers included 115º F.7. How long does it take the earth to rotate once on its axis?The two answers Leno received here were “Light-years” (which is a measure of distance, not time) and “Twenty-four axises [sic].”8. How many moons does the earth have?The student questioned said she had taken astronomy “a few years back and had gotten an A in the course but that she couldn’t remember the correct answer.

It is important to note that not a single student interviewed had the correct answer to any of these questions. Leno’s comment on this pathetic debacle says it all: “And the Chinese are stealing secrets from us?”• A 1998 survey by the National Constitution Center revealed that only 41 percent of American teenagers can name the three branches of government, but 59 percent can name the Three Stooges. Only 2 percent can name the chief justice of the Supreme Court; 26 percent were unable to identify the vice president. In the early 1990s, the National Assessment of Education Progress reported that 50 percent of seventeen year olds could not express 9/100 as a percentage, and nearly 50 percent couldn’t place the Civil War in the correct half cen“century—data that the San Antonio Express News characterized as evidence of the “steady lobotomizing” of American culture. In another study of seventeen year olds, only 4 percent could read a bus schedule, and only 12 percent could arrange six common fractions in order of size.• Ignorance of the most elementary scientific facts on the part of American adults is nothing less than breathtaking. In a survey conducted for the National Science Foundation in October 1995, 56 percent of those polled said that electrons were larger than atoms; 63 percent stated that the earliest human beings lived at the same time as the dinosaurs (a chronological error of more than 60 million years); 53 percent said that the earth revolves around the sun in either a day or a month (that is, only 47 percent understood that the correct answer is one year); and 91 percent were unable to state what a molecule was. A random telephone survey of more than two thousand adults, conducted by Northern Illinois University, revealed that 21 percent believed that the sun revolved around the earth, with an additional 7 percent saying that they did not know which revolved around which.”

No way I'm believing that 58 percent of American adults can locate Japan on a map. I don't think that many could find Canada. And 16 percent of college seniors knew Truman was president when the Korean war started? Impossible. I can't imagine 10 percent have even heard of Truman.

My favorite horror story -- and this was quite a while back, in the '70s -- was the high school graduate in San Francisco who didn't know where the Pacific Ocean is.

A great collection of essays on the subject came out in the late '90s -- "Dumbing Down: Essays on the Strip-mining of American Culture."

IraqVet2003 wrote:As for education in most countries vs. in the United States it seems to better among other industrialized nations for several reasons. For one thing students in most other countries wear UNIFORMS to school verses in the U.S. ( unless a child attends a private school). Secondly, when it comes to funding, the government pays for it on a national level even up to the university stage. Verses in the U.S. where public education is paid for through local property taxes in which based on the real estate values determines the quality of schooling a child will receive. For example if a child lives in a middle to upper-class neighborhood, they will have a higher quality education with good teachers, up-to-date facilities, computers, etc. and even the option of going to a private school. Thus, these children will also likely go onto the nation's top universities. However, if the child lives in a poor area such as the ghetto inner-city or rural town the funding is often far less as is the quality of education. This subject is highlighted in a book written by Johnathan Kozol entitled "Savage Inequalities".

But even if all the public education were funded equally I have come to believe it wouldn't solve the problem of the mass ignorance among most Americans. This is because American public education is BY DESIGN (through the elites such as the Rockefeller's) BEING "DUMBED DOWN" for both the purpose of SOCIALIZATION AND INDOCTRINATION. Not to create critical and creative thinkers, factual learning, or for expanding your intellect. Just enough to do a job, work in a group, or gain a skill. For the result of producing future EMPLOYEES AND SOLDIERS as Robert T. Kiyosaki the author of "Rich Dad Poor Dad" series mentions in one of his books "Rich Dad Smart Kid". Then finally I would like to say that American culture itself does not foster much intellectual thinking or curiosity of other countries/cultures/world events/history (except among those considered "nerds", "bookworms", or "geeks"). But instead the focus is too much on parties, drugs/alcohol, sports, popularity/social cliques, celebrities, sex, video games, violence, gangs, consumerism, and materialism. Please for anyone reading this thread check out these links:

On the issue of teacher shortages: When I first came to Tucson in the late '70s it was extraordinarily difficult to get a teaching job in Tucson Unified School District. You pretty much had to get on a waiting list. At the time, Tucson was considered a desirable place to live.

Now, the same school district typically has about a hundred teacher vacancies unfilled at the beginning of each school year. Tucson is essentially part of Mexico now, and the schools, where I sub every once in a while on days when I can find a job where the stress levels won't be off the charts, are virtually worthless. I suspect Tucson is fairly typical for the U.S. From students growing up in a culture that doesn't value academic learning or respectful behavior at all to standardized tests at the center of the curriculum, and all kinds of frustrations in between, there simply is no longer any incentive to become a teacher in the U.S.

gsjackson wrote:On the issue of teacher shortages: When I first came to Tucson in the late '70s it was extraordinarily difficult to get a teaching job in Tucson Unified School District. You pretty much had to get on a waiting list. At the time, Tucson was considered a desirable place to live.

Now, the same school district typically has about a hundred teacher vacancies unfilled at the beginning of each school year. Tucson is essentially part of Mexico now, and the schools, where I sub every once in a while on days when I can find a job where the stress levels won't be off the charts, are virtually worthless. I suspect Tucson is fairly typical for the U.S. From students growing up in a culture that doesn't value academic learning or respectful behavior at all to standardized tests at the center of the curriculum, and all kinds of frustrations in between, there simply is no longer any incentive to become a teacher in the U.S.

No incentive and no jobs for them either. (Unless you're an insane, high-strung white girl or affirmative action hire - always room for more of those!) It's downright dangerous to teach in the U.S. All it takes these days is an accusation of wrongdoing. Your innocence doesn't protest you in the USSA anymore. So many horror stories out there...and if it does happen to you, it doesn't matter if you are cleared of everything. It will stay with you forever.

Another issue is that U.S. college grads can't find jobs or stuck mopping floors for minimum wage. Especially when employers require 3 to 5 years of work experience, just for jobs that any college grad could do. This is the really big reason why I want to get out of the U.S. There isn't much legal economic opportunity so you're gonna have to move abroad. Even Canada and Australia economies are more stable and offers more "legal" economic opportunity. I have yet to seen the U.S. economy remain stable for more than ten years without any crashes or recessions.

I don't know if people are really that ignorant. It may be that high school students are smart alecs. Give them a test or survey and tell them it doesn't effect their grade and some of them may just put New York City in California to be smart alecs.

But a lot of people have trouble with maps, and it seems especially the case with women. My mom learned the US states and capitals, but doesn't know where China is on the map. They didn't teach that in the 1950's in her school. My wife learned her country's geography.

I had a geography class where we had to fill in every country in the world on the map, including countries in Africa, which have changed since then.